Jill James:

This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded April 13th, 2022. My name is Jill James, HSI's chief safety officer. And today my guest is Subena Colligan. Subena is a certified industrial hygienist, a certified safety professional, and is a health and safety coach and consultant at S. Colligan Coaching. She's also an Air Force veteran, executive coach, and chair elect of the Board for Global EHS Credentialing. She has dedicated her efforts to leadership and community outreach, thought leadership, community and influence related to occupational health and safety. In addition to delivering content in person, Subena is a blogger at subenacolligan.com, a blog designed to relate industrial hygiene to daily activities. Subena is joining us today from her home in Atlanta. Welcome to the show.

Subena Colligan:

Thank you, Jill.

Jill James:

Subena, tell us your origin story. How did all of this get started for you?

Subena Colligan:

I ran into safety as an accident. I find that my life is a series of fortunate events. And one of those fortunate events was going to the United States Air Force. I did not have an intention on going into industrial hygiene, but based off of my academic background, they said, Hey, this is the best fit for the Air Force.

Jill James:

Wow. What was your academic background that made them say that?

Subena Colligan:

I had a lot of math and science and I wanted to be a doctor. And going into the military, I was like, well, maybe I can get into a program that will send you to be a physician's assistant. And I was excited about that and I had five jobs that I could choose from. And four of them were medical related to go into the next steps for that physician's assistant program. The fifth was industrial hygiene, still in the medical organization.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And the person on the other side of the table, don't know her name, said, just put it as number five. You'll never get at it. And that's exactly what I got, which turned out to be fortunate for me.

Jill James:

Oh, that's great. You started to learn about what the practice of industrial hygiene is through the Air Force.

Subena Colligan:

I got immersed.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And it was beautiful because I got to do everything. We basically ran a small city with very hazardous processes, hazardous materials, all of the things that you just don't get to see. We had lead and copper pipes. We had water sampling in wells. We had planes crashing in the middle of Roswell, New Mexico, riding out in military care vans and having local news say that there was a UFO sighting. I had to do all of the things that you could even imagine in the industrial hygiene field.

Jill James:

Well, that's interesting, including the UFO part and being in Roslyn.

Subena Colligan:

Yeah.

Jill James:

That's one I have not heard about from any health and safety professional yet.

Subena Colligan:

Yeah. We were a very lucky group of professionals that day.

Jill James:

Yeah. And so as you continued to learn more, as you advanced in your career in the Air Force, what was happening at that time? Were you looking ahead and thinking, what am I going to do with this post Air Force?

Subena Colligan:

Yeah. The plan was to continue on this pathway to become a physician's assistant. I was not interested in industrial hygiene, but I enjoyed doing my job.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

There was one incident where we had this adhesive, so it was just like a glue, but it was meant for an aircraft. And in one department, they would put this glue on to a component of the aircraft and it had 70% lead in it.

Jill James:

Whoa.

Subena Colligan:

But it was an adhesive, so there wasn't really an exposure because it was all in the glue. But then later on in the process, another group of people, there were over 300 people assigned to that department would have to sand it off. They were exposed and it was something so small, but I knew about it. I saw it. We were able to find an alternative to it and we eliminated it across the board.

Jill James:

You followed the hierarchy of controls and you nailed it at the top.

Subena Colligan:

Right.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And it was something so simple because the department where we found it, we just traced it all the way through. We hadn't done any exposure assessments. We didn't know that this other group was being exposed, but because it was present, even though it wasn't a significant hazard to these other folks, we were able to eliminate it for someone else. And I was like, whoa. I'm like a superhero behind the scenes.

Jill James:

Absolutely.

Subena Colligan:

I've definitely got this. But really I was saving someone's life or their quality of life and they didn't know about it. I will never meet all of those people that no longer came in contact with it, but it felt really good, so that actually shifted. I was like, well, I'm not really into blood that much, but I can still save people. I can still do really good for others.

Jill James:

Yeah. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. Then what happened? Did you dig more in and continue with the industrial hygiene path while you're in the Air Force?

Subena Colligan:

Yeah, I stayed industrial hygiene after that. That was where all my education was. The CIH was the next big goal. I became a certified safety professional. And after six years in the Air Force, I made the transition into private industry, state industrial hygiene. Even as I moved over into more generalist responsibilities, I still say that industrial hygiene is my superpower. It's that different lens that allows me to look at hazards, just evaluate in a different way.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

It makes it very special for me, at least. I love industrial hygiene and I will stay an industrial hygienist the remainder of my career.

Jill James:

Subena, what was it like for you to go from government into the private sector?

Subena Colligan:

Huge shock.

Jill James:

Yeah. Right.

Subena Colligan:

It's so different.

Jill James:

Yeah. Which parts were shocking to you?

Subena Colligan:

The first, and I had this conversation not that long ago, there was so much more diversity in my career field in the Air Force, so when I came out, it was like, oh, this is different. That was a big difference for me, especially coming into the corporate side of my private industry work. But even the technologies. We hated our occupational and environmental health system where we put all of our data, all of our hazards, everything went into this one place. And when I came to private industry, I was like, what are these Excel spreadsheets? And it was the use of technology and access that was hard. And then the consistency of systems.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

So different.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. That was my experience, as well, having worked for the government in my first job, too. Same thing. Big shock to the system about, well, it was about systems actually. I was having systems to having no systems. Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

It's so true.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

Have you found yourself implementing more systems since making that transition from government to private industry?

Jill James:

Yeah. Yes. And it also has to do probably with just one of my internal strengths of analyzing things to try to make sense in order of them. And it's not to say that the government systems that I worked with were flawless or super easy. They weren't. But they were a system that everyone used. And so there was one source of truth, one place to go. There wasn't, oh, we're going to go here for this or they're doing it in their silo over here like this. That kind of stuff. Yeah, as I've moved forward with my career, it's trying to make systems and make things make sense.

Subena Colligan:

Yes. I don't know that it's a way of being for me. If you look in my house, especially in my closets, you would see that there is no system.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

However, in my work life, I've been able to stand out in places because systems management just makes sense to me.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

It's a great way to go do. It doesn't mean it's the best way for everything, but it does create some consistency in decision making and it helps with different turnover, great resignation.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

All of those things.

Jill James:

Yep. Yep. To be able to step into that. Tell me more about your private sector work life. And I know that you're also an entrepreneur now, but how did you get through those places to develop into an entrepreneur?

Subena Colligan:

Yeah. A lot of struggle, a lot of self-reflection, and a lot of alignment. When I say that, there was the issue of not belonging and for me, most of my private sector career has been being the only woman and, or the only woman of color or the only person of color in the professional group amongst middle aged white men. And not in a negative way. I've learned so much from my colleagues. The struggle was really finding belonging and connectedness and feeling included. And a lot of that really shifted some of my vision around what my career would look like. Before, it was like, yes, I'm going to go be this vice president of EHS and do all of these things. And then it was a little bit of a shift. I was like, well, will you really be happy?

And working through I had some incredible experiences. I came out as a corporate industrial hygienist, moved into EHS general roles. Having that broad scale, moved out to being a regional manager, or I had a very large site in a region. And in all of that, there was just this sense of something was missing. And at some point, Jill, I was overworked. I was under resourced. I was undervalued. And I had to have the compensation conversation more than once where I was not being valued the same as my peers, even with the master's degree, the CIH, the CSP. Some of my colleagues weren't even eligible to get to those points. And here I was really just dominating, moving programs forward, implementing systems and being told to be grateful that I was able to be there.

And it was at some point that I just hit this extreme burnout. And I sat on the couch for two days. I sent my dog to daycare because I couldn't care for another soul. And I had hit my rock bottom and it was like, okay, so how do you get out of here? And through all of my yoga and meditation, but then also business strategy, I had a plan. And so I implemented the plan. I took care of my people. That was really important to me to make sure my team was taken care of. And I did it again somewhere else. And after that, it was like, I could do this all the time. That was what I loved. I was creating strategies. I was looking at ways to resource my programs. I was sharing it with others. It was working for others. And it led me to doing what I love all of the time, which is where I started my coaching and consulting business.

Jill James:

Fantastic. Fantastic. You saw the gifts that you had, you knew that you could pick it up and replicate it from place to place, and figured what the heck? Why don't I just do this?

Subena Colligan:

Yes. Because at the end of the day, as a career field, we are over worked and under-resourced across the board. It's just too much. And so why not? Why not? The same way that we have the conversation about saving someone's life, when we really look at it, when we are so burnt out, our lives are not in our control. Our lives don't feel full. It's not fulfilling.

Jill James:

Right.

Subena Colligan:

And it's really providing the same avenues to have a better fulfillment in life while also enjoying what you do on a day to day basis.

Jill James:

Yeah. Beautiful. You've been an entrepreneur now for how long?

Subena Colligan:

This is actually my second business, so-

Jill James:

Oh, okay.

Subena Colligan:

Yeah. So cool. This will be year three for my first and then for the coaching and consulting today is exactly six months since I've launched.

Jill James:

Congratulations. Happy anniversary.

Subena Colligan:

Thank you.

Jill James:

Happy half birthday. That's awesome.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

That's awesome. Yeah. Subena, I wanted to circle back with you on you had mention what you noticed coming out of the Air Force was the lack of diversity in the private sector. And none of what you said is a surprise to any of us in the EHS profession. We know that women and women of color are underrepresented are in our field of work. However, I've been under the impression it's been getting better, which I believe it has, but you shared with me a statistic recently that made me go, oh crap, we still have so much further to go. Would you mind talking about the current statistics of what we know about our profession and representation?

Subena Colligan:

Yeah. Christina Roll actually wrote an article and I believe it was 27% of the profession was women. And then there was a 2018 study that was released by ASSP, the American Society of Safety Professionals, and that number was reduced. I believe it was 19% were women. And then maybe 22% were certified safety professionals so somewhere around that room. We're still very low. And to that point, there was nothing about racial or ethnic diversity and other forms of diversity that we should be looking at. This is just gender.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. Another lagging indicator, like medical studies that are all focused on men of a certain age and leaving out all kinds of other people.

Subena Colligan:

Yeah.

Jill James:

Yeah. Gosh, we have ways to go, women, to get more people into our field. Subena, in your work with both of your entrepreneurial businesses, and you're doing coaching now, are you finding yourself coaching more women or trying to reach that audience to encourage people in our field of work?

Subena Colligan:

Yes. What I find interesting about this, Jill, is that this is an us problem. It's not just women that need to catch the ball and keep rolling. However, it feels like more women are wanting to step up. More women are taking on those volunteer opportunities, creating more opportunities in their organizations, but really we need our male counterparts to start saying, Hey, there's too many men in this circle. How do I make space for some of these really excellent women that are moving the field forward? How do we create more opportunity to get out there in the universities and start recruiting some of the STEM students, especially women? As we get more young women into STEM, how do we allow them the opportunity to see how they can help others? And it's such a challenge because most of my clients are women. Most of my corporate clients that bring me in to work with their teams, these are the women, senior managers and directors, that see the opportunity for professional development in their teams.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And it's that type of care that is translating so much into the corporate landscape that we're seeing.

Jill James:

Yeah. Tell me, Subena, with your role in consulting and coaching right now, what are some of the areas that you're working with professionals on, especially for people who are listening and are thinking, Hmm, I've never really thought about having my own personal coaching experience regardless of who I am or where I am in my career path? What does it look like for people?

Subena Colligan:

It's so fun because it's meeting people exactly where they are. whether it is, I don't know where I want to go next. Let's go explore it. Some people that I work with are really struggling with creating boundaries, and you and I both have experienced this as health and safety professionals. There really is no boundary. They hand you a cell phone. You have your emails. You may work early mornings, late nights, weekends, whatever. If the organization, if the company is open, we may need you.

Because there's no like, oh, people don't get hurt after 5:00 PM.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

Now we're looking at how people are treated, people valuing their time differently. And where do we start creating this boundary for work? Psychological safety, burnout is happening. And that's usually the first reason that I'm brought in for a team. It's, Hey, my team is burnt out. We need help on figuring out one, where are we in this spectrum? And what strategies can we put in place to do our work more effective, efficiently, and sustainably to not get back in that space, because either you get out of burnout or you're losing people. Or if they do say your workload, your productivity just goes down because you've got someone that's just unhappy. They're literally in a state of despair. That's where a lot of the work is happening. On top of just finding ways to reconnect to the joy of the health and safety profession.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, do you work with people then on resiliency and what does that look like?

Subena Colligan:

Yes. We have a couple of different ways because each person is different. For some people, we strictly talk about energy management and that is creating non-negotiables and non-negotiables really help you set up your boundaries. And in those non-negotiables I ask four questions and this is for self-reflection. I don't ask people to share them with me unless they want to talk through them. And those four questions, not really four questions, but four statements are, I will not do, I will do, I can do with my current resources, I could do with additional resources. And it crosses the span of personal and professional life. It may be, I will not miss my family milestones, my anniversary, graduations, recitals.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

I will not miss those things. I could work until 9:00 PM if I had childcare or if I started work at 12:00 PM instead of 7:00 AM. And so creating those boundaries really sets the tone for sometimes the difficult conversations that need to happen. But the other side of that is you shift from hopelessness where it's like, ah, what am I doing, into, now I know where my actions need to go in order to make all of these statements true.

Jill James:

Sure. And really is self reflective, like you said, in a way that can help people just with those questions, which are beautiful, and I'll ask you to repeat them in a second, can I do this in the environment that I'm currently in?

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

And what would it look like? What would it look like for that to happen? Or yeah, it's time for me to go.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. Subena, would you mind repeating them again? Because I have a feeling people are probably going to take notes and be like, oh yeah, I'm at a crossroads here. I'm experiencing burnout or I'm overwhelmed. Let's think about this.

Subena Colligan:

Yes. It's I will not do, I will do, I can do with current resources, I could do with additional resources.

Jill James:

Love it. Love it. Thank you. Thank you. That's wonderful. Wonderful. There's a couple more questions based on things that we talked about before. I'm like, oh gosh, I want to be able to get to all this stuff, Subena. You had shared with me, we were just talking about resiliency, and you had shared with me the title of a book called "The Power of Rest" and, or "Attention Restoration." Am I getting this right? Attention restoration theory.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Do you mind talking about those things?

Subena Colligan:

Oh yes. This is life changing stuff here, but-

Jill James:

In addition into those four questions, now we're going to go into another life changing piece. Thank you, Subena, for being here today.

Subena Colligan:

And this is really in the realm of that mindfulness practice.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And it shares the idea in mindfulness and energy management that when we say rest, it does not simply mean being a vegetable on a couch, Netflix and chill, but it actually shares the science behind getting out into nature and allowing your brain to allow the subconscious to work through problem solving and really providing a reset. And so it's like you go outside, you're frustrated. You're like, I'm looking at the same document. I need to solve the problem. I'm nowhere. You put everything down, go for a walk, and then you come back and it's like the answer's there. And you're like, oh my gosh. That's the attention restoration theory, that getting out into nature is actually allowing different parts of your brain to solve problems and do their magic in the background. Other really beautiful ways to get that same rest is doing some type of activity that's joyous for you that does not require the same problem solving and cognitive skills. For some people it's painting, hiking, gardening, building an igloo.

Jill James:

Yeah. You're saying that because the last time we spoke, I had actually spent half a day building an igloo in my backyard because there was so much snow and I needed some attention restoration rest, is that it? I needed some attention restoration and new ways to think about things. I needed to shift my perspective, so I was explaining to Subena that I was in my backyard building an adult igloo. And then all kinds of things happened, thoughts, and things I needed to work through. Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And it just gives that time and it's energizing, but it's that same type of rest. It doesn't take away from you needing to get the right number of rest cycles for you, which the book also talks about, a full cycle and how to manage those because eight hours is a great number, but the book actually talks about how to do the science behind what your body actually needs to restore itself. But it's just those opportunities to reset and recharge. And we live in such a toxic culture, such a toxic busyness culture, that says if you're not being busy towards being productive, then you are, it feels like almost, wasting your life or being useless to society.

Jill James:

Right.

Subena Colligan:

But in reality, we need time so that we can be more productive in our societies and share more benefit to ourselves and others.

Jill James:

Beautiful. The book is called "The Power of Rest," correct?

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And I think for the notes I can get the author. I always forget the author.

Jill James:

Yeah. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah. That'll be great. I have a feeling that people are going to be interested in this book. I know I am. Thank you for sharing that.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah. As we continue, we're talking so much today, Subena and I really appreciate this, about the care of us as professionals. We spend, as you said, and what ignites us and gets us excited, it is the abilities that we have in our professional disciplines to positively impact and protect the health and wellbeing for human beings. And it's what gets us up every day. It's what jazzes us. We're interested in worker justice, but we have to take care of ourselves.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

And we deserve to be protected as well. Yeah. You want to talk more about why that's so exciting for you?

Subena Colligan:

Yeah, absolutely. Protecting the health and safety profession and acknowledging that total worker health, total worker health for people in the audience that aren't aware is a concept developed by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. And it's an entire framework of just different areas of a person, an organization that goes into how they are their wellbeing. And that wellbeing goes beyond the moment that they clocked in and clocked out. The same way, if someone had COVID, it wouldn't be like, well, I got COVID at home, but it doesn't apply at work.

Jill James:

Right. Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

It's the whole person.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And after what I experienced with extreme burnout, I did really get to a place of despair. I had no clue. I didn't share this with you. I actually wanted to quit health and safety altogether. I was going to open a juice bar. I was like, it can't be-

Jill James:

You were going to check out hard. Okay.

Subena Colligan:

I was. I was like, this is my only way out. I just must run the other direction. And my spouse said, well, your juice bar is now as big as Starbucks. What are you going to do with all your money? I was like, I'm going to buy a private jet and fly health and safety professionals around the world to protect third world countries. And I was like, oh, nevermind.

Jill James:

I'm still in it.

Subena Colligan:

I still love it.

Jill James:

You're still in it.

Subena Colligan:

I'm still here. But we have to be protected in order to not get to that place, because if I hadn't checked out, what if that person that is checked out is no longer caring about the programs that they're producing. They're walking past those near miss behaviors or the behaviors that could lead to a significant injury or fatality. And just by them not having the energy to look and correct behavior, they're telling the organization and the culture that it's okay. Then those behaviors continue to multiply. And those are the things that we can't afford. If we're going to get to zero fatalities, which is what the National Safety Council is pushing for, then we have to have the right people with the right motivation that are looking for the right knowledge that are willing to put in the energy that it takes to move entire organizations, which means we have to get protected too.

Jill James:

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Couple different directions I want to ask you about there. Thank you for that. Circling back, total worker health and the framework around it is from NIOSH. Is that what you said?

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yes. Okay. If someone wants to look that up, or maybe we can include that in the show notes as well. Subena, it's a guidance document, so if people want somewhere to start, they can start there.

Subena Colligan:

Yes. NIOSH offers several resources under their total worker health. Michael Flynn is also one of the health and safety professionals that leads a lot of that research. And there are tons of webinars happening for free right now really talking about, not only total worker health, but diversity, equity, and inclusion in occupational health and safety programs. And even the underlying biases that are associated with our occupational health and safety programs or determinations and or regulations. That's the word I was looking for.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. What a great moment in time for us to be talking about that and addressing it. In particular, it's my belief, and from what I've been hearing from other health and safety professionals when you were talking about others' belief in our work and field of work, we had this unique opportunity afforded to us because of the pandemic to be brought into places and have seats at tables where many of us have never had them before because of our knowledge and backgrounds. And so the door is cracked open, so let's keep going.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And we have to. For the folks that got a seat at the table, one of my colleagues, he was having conversations with the C-suite once COVID 19 happened.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And he got that seat at the table and we entered the field around the same time.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And he was that person speaking life into the protection of workers around the world for this company.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

And it's such an honor to have that door open. It's such an honor to get a seat at that table. And so now what we have to do is really work on how we remain in those spaces and grow our influence and also grow community behind the leaders that are making these decisions moving forward.

Jill James:

Yeah, absolutely. Subena, what do you think are some of the forces? I want to talk about the sunny side and the shady side, not shady as in bad, but the darker side, the forces at play that can support that. And then the things that are at play that are challenging to people in our field right now in terms of taking care of us.

Subena Colligan:

Yeah. One of the areas, and we don't have a lot of time to dig into this, but one of the areas that's emerging is ESG, the environmental, social, and governance that is being regulated by the SEC. I don't remember what SEC stands for at the moment, but they manage the money in the country.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Security's and Exchange Commission.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

That is exactly what it is. It's coming behind money. One, E is everything environmental, S is all social to include safety, psychological safety, DEI, all of the things that are really impacting how we manage our businesses. Now companies that need to be in line with ESG that are relying on any type of investments, contracts, a part of a supply chain, they will start to conform to ESG, which is a really great sunny side because we now have this streamlined avenue directly to the money that can say, these are the things is that we need to do to support. Along with ESG is coming these public disclosures. Just like we do annual reports for a lot of these publicly traded companies, other companies outside of publicly traded, but especially publicly traded, will now have to talk about the things very specific to what they're doing because their environmental and safety practices will become liabilities for the health of their business, which is a really big deal.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

That is really, really, really sunny. On the other side of that, one, we're behind in a lot of ways. The profession embraces technology in some spaces, especially with direct reading instruments.

Jill James:

Yep.

Subena Colligan:

Coming as an industrial hygienist, I get my hands on some of the coolest toys out there, but then we're not leveraging technology the same. And my concern with not leveraging that technology is, one, losing interest from incoming generations that have had technology since they could open their eyes. Some of these one year olds know how to operate a iPhone and get to YouTube to play Peppa Pig or something. Losing interest is one of those areas, but then also not being able to translate to other business units within a company to really be taken seriously, to have that seat at the table, because it feels archaic. And if you're not innovating and you're not evolving an organization, then that could become a challenge for really building that community and influence as well.

Jill James:

Yeah. Gosh, that's so true about our profession, HSI as a content and technology company. And when we're engaging with our customers and talking with environmental health and safety professionals, and we often ask where are you on the technology journey because our assumption is they're behind. Because as a profession, all of our other cohorts and all of our other disciplines whether it be HR and people clocking in for their time with an optical scanner to-

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

... To an EHS professional, who's Excel, checklist, clipboard. We actually have to ask, where are you on this journey? There isn't an assumption of that. And with the world of work being what it is in terms of employers competing for the best talent and getting talent at their places of employment, these things become really important. Like you said, if you walk into a job where you've had technology in your hands since you were a one year old, and you walk into somewhere where it's here's a checklist on a clipboard, go do this thing, where are going to stay? And really engaging with the majority generation in the workforce right now.

Subena Colligan:

Yes. That is our responsibility.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

It's our responsibility to value people.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

Value their experiences, value their interests, and there's six elements to burnout. And one of those elements is values mismatch. The opposite of burnout is actually job satisfaction. I promise you. If you go through all six, it's job satisfaction on the other side. If we are missing that value mismatch, where people are looking to maximize the time that they have, we're going to continue to lose people. And technology equals more time and more time to enjoy life. And I think that's what, across generations, what COVID taught us was that time is limited.

Jill James:

Yeah. And an awakening moment for the human body, for certain.

Subena Colligan:

It was.

Jill James:

In one regard or another.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. Subena, I know we don't have tons of time left today. I want to be respectful of your time. You've been talking about working together and working with people in community, and let's talk about teams, if you wouldn't mind, and what your observations are in terms of what makes a healthy team. In addition to eliminating burnout and having job satisfaction, yeah, what are you seeing? What are you recommending?

Subena Colligan:

There's some elements there that you need. You have to have psychological safety. And with that psychological safety comes vulnerability. And once people are open, they're willing to connect. And if you are connecting with a person and they connect to values to your leadership, to the job that they're doing, the workload, all of that, it makes a difference. Earlier this week, I got to go to a panel where it was the mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, and Tope Awotona. He is the CEO and founder of Calendly. And they were just valued at $3 billion.

Jill James:

Wow.

Subena Colligan:

Just a huge deal. And we're in a room full of these high profile technology, business leaders in the Atlanta area, and a couple hundred people were in the room and they kicked off and really asked for the origin story for Tope. And in the midst of him talking as he was looking out in the crowd, he stopped. And in the same row that I was in to my left, there were two people, a male and a female. He said, is that Reggie? Is that Alicia? Hey guys. And they were two Calendly employees. And he thanked them for coming on their off time to listen to this panel. And just valuing the people that were there. Earlier in the introductions, they flashed his Forbes cover. And he said, he felt uncomfortable because it was those people, it was the Reggies and Alicias, the 500 Calendly employees around the world that truly gave him community and that built that organization.

It wasn't being on stage. It wasn't being on Forbes. It was about taking care of people. And ultimately, if anything is being told to us, it's that people are valuable. We're not productivity metrics. We're more than just workhorses. And that type of reaction shows that within Calendly, there is that psychological safety, vulnerability, and connection. And what Tope demonstrated, just deepens that connection beyond those two folks that were there, because they're going to go back and share, and it's just this beautiful, it's like a flowering. Just a blossom of positivity and really being valued for who you are as a person.

Jill James:

Yeah. And having a leader show their human, right?

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah. Gosh. If we're all given a script, a memo, a set of instructions of how to be a professional, how to be a leader, be strong, be this, be brave, be decisive in your action. You don't see on this list of this memo, these sets of instructions, be human, see humanity, thank people sincerely for their work. See in them the gift that they're giving to the greater good and acknowledge them for it. Yeah. That's not how we were raised in our culture.

Subena Colligan:

No.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

But that idea is shifting significantly.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Subena Colligan:

75% of the workforce will be in this millennial range. But when we say, millennials, we're not talking 20 year olds anymore.

Jill James:

No.

Subena Colligan:

People that are 40 plus at this point, director levels, VP levels. They're saying we demand to be respected. We want to spend quality time with our families. We want to value the work that we're contributing to. We want to work for companies that are contributing to the better good of humanity and to our world that we're leaving behind for our grandchildren.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the generation behind them who are also starting in the work for force feel the same way.

Subena Colligan:

Oh, they're kicking our butts.

Jill James:

Totally. Yeah. My child is part of that generation and just to watch he and his cohorts, his friend group, come up is yeah, they're not slackers.

Subena Colligan:

They're not. I went through a situation yesterday. My niece she's in that younger generation and she quit her job because she was feeling anxiety and wasn't being valued, wasn't being respected, and just the way that her new supervisor was treating her. And she weighed her options. And she said, my value is more than what this person thinks that they can do and manipulate my life. I'll go find a new job.

Jill James:

Yeah. Right. And that's really hard for many in our society to take because we were conditioned to believe that the more strikes, the more hits that you took and endured that made you get to where you are today was all worth it.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

But was it?

Subena Colligan:

No. That power dynamic is shifting.

Jill James:

Right. Right. Right. The life we're living today in the present is what we have.

Subena Colligan:

Yes. That's all we've got.

Jill James:

Yeah. Gosh, I wish I would've known some of those things when I was starting out.

Subena Colligan:

Me too. I look at these people coming into the workforce, people that are making these significant changes, and I adore everything that they are doing to own their lives.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. And to be present.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. For each day. And to give their all when they are present.

Subena Colligan:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah. It's pretty remarkable.

Subena Colligan:

It is.

Jill James:

Very remarkable. Oh, Subena, oh, I think we could probably talk for a few hours and I hope our listeners are feeling the same way. I really appreciate of the things that... You've shared so many wonderful, tangible things that people can be thinking about taking action on, looking into, and doing. I really, really appreciate that. Do you have any final thoughts, things you wanted to share, talk about, leave with our audience today?

Subena Colligan:

If I can leave the audience with anything it's that we have one life to live and that you deserve to be valued. You deserve to be happy and you deserve to do work that brings you joy.

Jill James:

Perfect. Subena, thank you so much.

Subena Colligan:

You are so welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Jill.

Jill James:

Yeah. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more health and safety professionals. Special thanks to [inaudible 00:51:28], our podcast producer. Until next time, thanks for listening.